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Chinese property
中國房地產
For whom the bubble blows
泡沫為誰而破
House prices are soaring in big cities, but oversupply plagues much of the country
大城市房價飆漲，但產能過剩才是全國性的問題
SHANGHAI, China’s financial centre, does not make it easy on outsiders wishing to buy homes. Non-residents who are single are banned from buying property. The married are welcome but only so long as they have paid local taxes for two years and make nearly a third of the purchase in cash. Shenyang, China’s biggest northern city, is far more welcoming. Anyone can buy a home there. All to little effect: housing prices in Shanghai, five times more expensive than those in Shenyang, have risen by 20% over the past year; those in the northern city have edged down.
上海是中國的金融中心，對于外來打工者來說，想在這里安家置業絕對不是一件容易的事。單身的非長駐居民不允許在這里買房。已婚人士購房是歡迎的，但前提是已經向地方政府上繳了兩年稅款并現金支付至少三分之一的購房款。中國北方最大的城市沈陽遠比上?！盁崆楹每汀?。任何人都可以在沈陽買房。但仍然無濟于事，上海的房價比沈陽貴5倍，并且在去年一年里增長了20%，與此同時，北方城市房價卻小幅下降。
This bifurcation is a worry for the government, which wants to spur growth without inflating bubbles. A divergence in housing prices between wealthy cities and the hinterland is a familiar problem in other countries—just look at London and Lincolnshire, say, or New York and Nebraska. But the divisions are starker in China. In its most prosperous cities, already giddy prices continue to shoot up, while unsold flats pile up in markets where valuations were low to begin with. Moreover, construction has long been one of the economy’s main engines, accounting for as much as a quarter of GDP growth until recently. This makes it especially important that the government get the balance right. Doing so is proving hard.
政府希望既能刺激經濟又不引發通脹，因此對兩極分化的現象感到擔憂。一線城市和欠發達地區的房價分化現象在其他國家也不少見：例如倫敦和林肯郡、紐約和內布拉斯加州。然而這種分化在中國表現得更明顯。一邊是在中國最繁華的城市里持續飆漲的房價，另一邊則是本來市值就低的房子待售成堆。而且建筑行業一直是國家經濟增長的主要引擎之一，直到最近仍占GDP增長的四分之一。因此，對于政府來說，保持平衡至關重要卻也困難重重。
Over the past half-year, the government has unveiled a series of measures to support the housing market that specifically exclude China’s five hottest markets (Beijing, Guangzhou, Sanya, Shanghai and Shenzhen). People buying homes need only make a 20% down-payment to obtain a mortgage, except in the five conurbations, where they must put down 30%. By the same token, in most of the country transaction taxes have been cut by as much as two-thirds for people buying second homes; in the five outliers they have been left unchanged. In Shenzhen, a southern tech hub that is the frothiest market, with prices up by 53% in the past year alone, local officials have vowed to crack down on speculators and expand the supply of affordable housing.
在過去半年里，政府出臺了一系列政策來穩住大部分城市的房地產市場（北京、廣州、三亞、上海和深圳這五個房地產最火的城市除外）。購房者只需支付20%的首付款即可獲得房屋貸款（這五個城市則需要付30%）；二套房購買者所要上繳的交易契稅也減免了2/3（這五個城市保持不變）。深圳作為南方的科技中心，房價在去年一年上漲53%，成為泡沫最嚴重的城市，當地政府發誓要嚴控房產投機并加大可負擔住房的供應。
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